Happy Birthday – The Wiki Celebrates its Sweet 16

The wiki turns16 today. How far it has come since that day 16 years ago when Ward Cunningham created a Web page that anyone could edit.

Today, we see the evidence of that pioneering work in all facets of the Web and the emerging app ecosystem.

In the 1990s, there was a vision of the read/write Web. But most sites were static with little or no interactivity.

The wiki helped transform the Web into an experience that is as much about writing to a page as it is about reading it.

As I write this, billions of messages are being written on Web sites and apps of all varieties. That’s the read/write Web and what we see as the norm for mobile apps. In may ways, those developments represent the significance of this birthday.

So, how can we celebrate?

Edit the WikiBirthday page! Add your name and a birthday note. Do so and you’ll get a nice little thank you from Ward Cunningham.

I learned about RSS in 2003 and decided to do a Webcast called RSS Winterfest. I soon discovered Socialtext and learned about the power of the wiki and the potential combination with RSS. Ross Mayfield and the Socialtext team became a big part of that event. We created a wiki that we used as a way to live edit the discussions taking place in the webcast. Roland Tanglao helped edit in real-time as we discussed the potential of RSS in the two-day event with Dave Winer, Robert Scoble, Jeff Jarvis and a host of others. That was a defining time for me and has since led me on a host of adventures.